In city streets life isn't only contained within the borders of people's homes, it spills out onto the sidewalks, onto stoops and balconies and the smells of dinners and laundry waft out the windows. You can walk down a back alley and get a glimpse into people's lives through an open window. Maybe a radio is playing or voices are heard. In Seoul you can walk down an alleyway and peek into the cracks in doorways and see men and women at work in a way that used to be commonplace in my childhood. Tailors mending garments with a needle and thread, cobblers hammering boots, the smell of polish filling the air, or a fish monger mercilessly chopping the head off a new catch. The real secrets still hide behind closed doors but in these moments you can see the faintest outlines of people's lives until you move on and they dissipate in the distance.